10 Canned Craft Beers to Drink Now

By Peter Koch | Photo by PK

Not long ago the only beers you could buy in cans were dirt-cheap, water-thin, mass-produced macrobrews. Good craft beer came in bottles, period. Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis changed all that in 2002, when he packaged the first commercial batch of Dale’s Pale Ale in aluminum cans that went wherever his outdoor adventures took him. Today, at least 400 craft breweries are canning more than 1,400 beers. And why not? Cans are lightweight and rugged. They also keep your suds fresh by blocking beer-damaging UV rays, and cool off quicker in a lake, river or mountain stream. Plus, they’re beach-friendly (no broken glass to worry about) and all of the wild new designs mimic soda cans, so they attract less attention from police at concerts or in the park, where drinking is socially acceptable even if it is, strictly speaking, illegal. These are the 10 canned beers we’ll be cracking most this summer.